Alice Brunswick 17/04/20

                                            The Time Machine Stops

There was only one missing at the dinner table so they could all start on the marvelously looking entrees consisting of foie gras and strawberry jam. Present around the table; Doctor, Journalist, therapist ... Indeed, none of those would have an excuse to be so fashionably late, except for him, he was the time traveler.

A grumpy looking doctor, sitting at the edge was getting impatient:

-“Again, huh? It’s all getting cold”

The therapist, being reassuring as always:

-“You know him. I thought you were getting used to it by know. Fortunately, as you know, the later he is, the more passionating his story will end up being. Worth eating cold foie gras, don’t you think.”

Upon these words, they heard the main door opening.

-”Just in time for the champagne” the journalist gushed.

The time traveler, looking whiter and even more exhausted than his usual-self, sat down through his peers.

-”Please, before anything, pour me a drink.”

After, a well-poured champagne glass followed a long silence which he finally broke with these words:

-”I will tell my story now.

Well, as you all gathered from my last voyage, my machine has her flaws; she was unprecise and would sometimes take me to unsafe places. I’ve spent weeks trying to fix it. As I was working on it I realized that I could change the time-space geography only if I traveled in a closer future. That is why I went to the 2200s. For obvious reason, I will not talk about all I’ve seen through my travel, but only up to the year 2220 so that it doesn’t influence our present, I wouldn’t want to waste a good dinner. I’ve arrived in an odd-looking cell the size of a bee’s. The only thing surrounding me was a centered black screen and a bed, I first thought I was locked inside that small windowless room but as I approached the door, it mechanically opened. White artificially lit hallways going on for miles, no one in sight. Then, I heard a ringing coming from the cell; the screen turned on. A man, from head to shoulder appeared on this screen, I gathered that he saw me as he said:

-Vashti? Oh, I must have dialed the wrong person.

-Wait. I need help. Can you tell me where you are located?

-Oh, well in my cell. Where else would you want to be?

-I come from.. Elsewhere. How can I find the exit to access the outside world

-Going to the outside world, no ideas here... None that I’m interested in anyway. I’ll give you an idea; the evolution of art history from 200s to 220s. Feel free to join the lecture.

Thus, from this useful screen and trough “lectures” I gathered enough information to understand what has happened to this generation to be content in such a small cell without any human connection.

In 2020, a muting, extremely contagious disease spread throughout the world. It was transmitted through direct human contact. It had so many names that they end up calling it the Virus. First coming from China, devastating Europe, and finally spreading to the USA, almost destroying its economy. The United States president of the time figured that a flowing economy was more valuable than human life. When the disease seemed to be vanishing, as life was beginning to be normal again, the virus arrived in Africa and mutated to be more deadly than ever. After an innumerable body count, the population decided to isolate. For a couple of years, they were living with their family in the comfort of their own home without ever going out. Of course, as you guessed, it didn’t last. Just as if we decided to stay around this table together forever, we would kill each other. Also, immunity didn’t last for this virus, they would only transmit it to each other again and again and kill their own peers. Therefore, humans began to fear direct experience and decided to isolate themselves in one single cell per human. They live by a machine that gives them lessons, learning from second-hand or even tenth-hand experiences.” They were isolated for so long that they eventually forgot the original reason. Generation after generation, they gave birth isolated and were raised by a machine. The evening’s ambiance was suddenly filled with tension and a drunk-looking audience absorbing the time traveler’s words as they were with their last drop of champagne.

“You may wonder how it ended and if the population finally decided to escape their cell, but you should not wonder, at least if you’ve been attentive to my previous travel story.

An illumination went through the doctor’s eyes as his champagne class slipped from his shaking hands, and through the sudden noise of glass breaking on the floor:

- ”Oh God, he said, The Morlocks…”

The dessert arrived on time to distract them from the fact that their own perception of reality was blurring.